


when you go and i'm alone

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [14]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, olivia au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 19:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8727604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: Nick almost gets hit by a car the day before Harry Styles moves in next door to him. Both of them are momentous enough occasions that that's the way Nick thinks of them -- forever linked. The day Nick nearly got hit by a car and the day Harry Styles moved in.

  The car was a red 1987 Toyota Camry with one missing hubcap and a black trim.
Harry Styles was in his mid-twenties with his shirt hanging open and grin that could stop a train in its tracks just so the conductor could look at it longer. [Or Nick gets a new neighbor who's always talking to someone or something called Olivia.]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mozartspiano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozartspiano/gifts).



> This is for my love Sabrina, who's been after me to write her a Gryles for quite some time. I tried my best, and Sabrina deserves the best. Thank you eternally for your support.
> 
> blood tw. you'll see.

****Nick almost gets hit by a car the day before Harry Styles moves in next door to him. Both of them are momentous enough occasions that that's the way Nick thinks of them -- forever linked. The day Nick nearly got hit by a car and the day Harry Styles moved in.

The car was a red 1987 Toyota Camry with one missing hubcap and a black trim.

Harry Styles was in his mid-twenties with his shirt hanging open and grin that could stop a train in its tracks just so the conductor could look at it longer.

Nick had been minding his own business, head in his phone unless at an intersection, like the good pedestrian he is, and the red 1987 Toyota Camry had ignored its red light and all other manner of moral decorum to come barreling straight for Nick.

He had slowed nearly to a stop in the middle of the crosswalk, almost too baffled to move by the fact that he was going to get murdered by a red 1987 Toyota Camry -- at the time he had not known it was a 1987 Toyota Camry, but the police report had said as much. Of all the cars Nick would have liked to have said had taken him out, a 1987 Toyota Camry is nowhere on the list.

Just as Nick was thinking, _I should probably say some sort of prayers to God so they’ll let me in up there,_ the car suddenly shifted to the side, narrowly avoiding Nick altogether. One tire had blown out, then another, then the car went skidding and smashed into a pole that sent electric wires snapping and crackling.

Police arrived before Nick could even blink, before he could make it across the street to see if the bloke driving the 1987 Toyota Camry was even still alive, and he was being hauled off by an officer to give his witness statement.

The next day Harry Styles had moved in, almost overnight. The most Nick had seen of it were a couple of buff lads thumping out of Harry’s flat and down the stairs, never to be seen again, leaving Harry Styles draped in his own doorway to greet Nick as he meant to take Pig and Stinky for a walk.

Just as Nick was thinking, _I should probably say some sort of prayer to God for moving this specimen next door_ , Harry spoke, with this laborious sounding drawl that made one word sound like it was going on for seven.

"Hello," is what Harry had said, which was normal by almost every social protocol Nick could think of.

But for some reason what had come out of Nick’s own mouth in response was, "I didn't know Mrs. Erbentraut had moved out."

Harry had blinked at him slowly -- Nick had thought it was slow at the time, but that just appears to be the way Harry's eyelids function.

Then Harry had said something else fairly ordinary, again as far as social protocols were concerned, but as far as Nick was concerned, Harry's words just about ruined his life. "She did, yeah. M'Harry, your new neighbor."

\--

There's a package and a Harry Styles waiting for Nick at his door when he gets home.

“Harry Styles, what a pleasant -- ” he stops, about to say _surprise_ , but the fact of the matter is, they live next door to each other and Nick sees him every day, not always directly outside his door, but usually somewhere in the vicinity. “What a pleasant,” Nick confirms stupidly. “Hello.”

“You’ve got a package,” Harry notes.

“So I’ve been told. Quite the formidable one.”

Harry laughs big, this all-encompassing ritual that seems to take his whole body to perform, but otherwise doesn’t comment. Win some, lose some. Harry follows Nick into his flat because he really hasn’t got a sense of personal boundaries, not that Nick’s going to complain.

They met when Nick went to go walk the dogs, and Harry invited himself along on the walk, to lunch when he’d gotten back, and well into the night, requesting of Nick a thorough tour of his flat. Harry has yet to return the favor -- seems to be more like the type who likes to come over instead of having people over, which is sort of fine by Nick.

Historically it has not been fine by Nick because he’s usually the one doing all the washing up after, but. Harry does his own washing up. He’s a real keeper. Not that Nick would -- anyway.

The dogs shout up at Nick, and Nick shouts back down at the dogs, and there’s much of the general ten minute hullaballoo that always happens when Nick gets home. Harry just finds somewhere to perch until Nick’s managed to assuage the dogs that he’ll take them out in a bit once he’s had a second to breathe.

Harry watches him open the package, almost like he’s more excited for what’s inside than Nick is.

It’s a snow globe with a large green gem just sort of stuck in there, roof to floor, completely out of place with the plastic village it’s cratered in and the looping yellow font on the base that says, “Välkommen till Sverige!” Nick has no idea what that says.

“I have no idea what this says.”

“It says Welcome to Sweden,” Harry supplies handily.

“Ah.” Nick moves to put it on the shelves he keeps by the telly, with all the rest of his junk collected from all over the world. He knows Harry’s seen it before, having been literally everywhere, but Nick for some reason doesn’t quite remember telling Harry about these. “My great uncle Ivan always sends me these weird knickknacks from his travels. Great uncle as in he's my mum’s uncle. Not like he's a great uncle. He's actually pretty average as far as uncles are concerned. Albeit weirdly generous with the keepsakes.”

“Weird knickknacks,” Harry repeats slowly.

Nick looks at him. Harry appears to be very deep in thought, mulling something over that looks pretty serious, if the pout of his lips is any indication. “Yeah,” Nick confirms.

“Knickknacks for Nick. _Nick_ -knacks.” There it is. That must have been what was causing him pain.

“That’s hilarious.” Nick actually isn’t sure if it is hilarious, but he likes the smile it puts on Harry’s face.

“Do you mind if I take some pictures?” Harry points at his wall of Nick-knacks.

There are some truly odd ones. This isn’t his first snow globe, but it is the first one that looks like it’s replaying a scene where a large meteorite made of Kryptonite has made its home in the middle of Sweden.

“For a project,” Harry follows up.

“You’re a bit old for a uni student,” Nick laughs. Then says very seriously, “I hope.”

“Yeah, no, it’s a personal thing, like. I do some photography on the side.”

“Oh, good,” Nick answers as lightly as he can. “Yeah, fire away.”

He’s never exactly wanted to ask how it is Harry can afford to live here while working part-time at the coffee shop on the first floor of Nick’s office. Not to be, like, insufferably judgmental, but Nick knows what his own rent is and it’s enough that he’s considered just offering the life of his firstborn (and secondborn and thirdborn) in order to just buy the place.

At first he’d thought Harry might have been some wealthy son of a billionaire on a rumspringa in Primrose Hill, trying out some sort of fake plebeian life where he learns to toil like the working man at a knock off Starbucks for a year. Nick’s still not entirely clear.

Whatever Harry’s story is, it’s yet to stop Nick from utterly throwing himself at Harry at any given moment. And directly in spite of the fact that Harry has no sense of personal boundaries and spends more time over at Nick’s flat than he does his own, Harry seems to have no interest in him at all.

\--

They take the dogs out after Harry’s done with his little art project, Nick walking Pig and Stinky walking Harry. It had always said a lot about Harry that Nick’s dogs took to him immediately. They must sense weakness.

“Did you know that a meteor is actually called a meteorite when it hits the earth? That’s like the difference.”

Harry looks impressed, as he should. “I didn’t.”

“Everyone’s always saying meteors in their backyard, but it’s like. Meteorites instead.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, well, I read that on the internet, so I figure it must be true.” Nick has no idea whether it’s true. “You have this really frustrating ability to get me to say utter bollocks. You should talk more.”

Harry laughs at that, stopping to unwind Stinky’s leash from his leg in a rather dexterous twirl, and looks up at Nick like he’s waiting for him to keep talking. Nick stays silent -- he is capable, he absolutely means it this time, it’s the Harry Hour.

Harry looks nervous. “What should I talk about?”

“Literally anything in the world. I’m dying over here.”

“Ummmm.” He pulls at his lip, worrying it until it looks even more red and bite-worthy than it normally does. “I prefer cats to dogs.”

“Get out.”

Harry looks stricken. They’re in a park, there’s nowhere necessarily to get out _to_ , but the fact that Harry takes the threat that seriously is really something else.

“I’m joking.” Nick thinks he’s joking.

Harry still looks relieved. “I’ve been to Sweden once. Stockholm.”

“Yeah?” Nick tries to remember where Sweden is -- it’s the innocent one right in the middle of Europe, right? The one that refuses to pick a side? Or, no, actually, it’s up in the testes, innit, one of those.

“I fought a guy for Princess Birgitta’s honor. Came out of it with a nasty scar on my hip.”

Nick pauses. “What?”

Harry pauses. “ _Princess Birgitta’s Honor_ is a, um, it’s a book.”

“Must be one hell of a book.”

“It’s a page turner,” Harry agrees. “I was joking about the scar on my hip.”

“Of course.”

They keep walking. The dogs have a wee. Nick chats mindlessly like he could talk for a living. Harry smiles at him and Nick nearly trips over his feet.

Harry grabs his arm suddenly, twisting him so they’re chest to chest, his hands on Nick’s hips. “Look at me for a second.”

“Okay.” Gladly, honestly, it’s one of Nick’s favorite pastimes.

It’s charged, like someone could take the tension between the two of them and power a defibrillator. Harry’s eyes look darker than they ever have, the serious furrow of his brow and the thin press of his lips at complete odds with the general easiness that usually paints his face.

Nick takes this time to memorize Harry’s eyes when they’re looking back at him; the thin, light hair dusted around his lips when his eyes aren’t looking at him. Harry looks older now, like somehow all the weight of the world has found its way onto his shoulders in a moment’s notice, and the only relief he gets is Nick standing this close to him.

Harry licks his lips and Nick’s heart actually does skip a full beat. Then Harry relaxes, and says, “Okay.”

Nick feels like he’s just been defibrillated. “Okay?”

Harry grins quickly, but it doesn’t look right. “Okay.”

“What -- was that?” Nick asks, properly breathless. Harry seems otherwise unfazed.

“I thought maybe you had something on your face.”

Nick nearly says, _could have been your lips_ , but he doesn’t. “Did I not?”

Harry smoothes a thumb over Nick’s cheek. “Eyelash.” He flicks his fingers so the eyelash will be gone, and Nick’s too dazzled not to notice whether there actually is one.

This is dangerous. Harry Styles is a dangerous man.  

Harry goes to step away, but Stinky’s done up his leash around both of Harry’s legs while he was standing still. Harry hits the ground instead.

Nick laughs so hard he gets a stitch in his side, which Harry swears all up and down he deserves.

\--

He misses Harry. It’s not a thing, not really, he’s not like. Walking into his kitchen, imagining Harry leaned against his counter, sunglasses in his hair, shirt open past the butterfly on his stomach.

Harry disappears sometimes, for long stretches, off to do something with Olivia.

Harry’s always talking about Olivia and butterflies and meeting up in the summertime -- never actually talking _to_ Nick about Olivia, necessarily, but Harry shouldn’t take phone calls on his private balcony if he doesn’t want to be eavesdropped on.

Olivia must be his girlfriend, his long distance, longtime girlfriend who studies butterflies in the Tropics or something and must be coming back home to England in the summertime.

Or any of the other things Nick’s spent all his days imagining up because he doesn’t actually know a damn thing about Harry except that he likes Harry a whole heck of a lot and Harry leaves for weeks at a time and Harry somehow manages to know a little Swedish and Harry likes to take pictures of things.

Harry falls out of town without a single word of warning, slips back into town without any of the fanfare Nick would demand of his own triumphant return from a holiday. Harry doesn’t phone while he’s away either, not that Nick’s entirely sure he’s actually got Nick’s phone number. Harry hasn’t really needed it, since he’s always just sort of -- present.

Nick isn’t above a light pout on his sofa, curled up with a blanket and a cocoa and one dog cuddling per side and an episode of Planet Earth (so he can say he watches documentaries because he’s sophisticated like). He’s not above admitting he’s a bit lonely without Harry.

He’s got two idiot dogs specifically for the purpose of never feeling alone, and he was quite gifted at never feeling alone when it was Mrs. Erbentraut next door and not the six foot tall human personification of comfortably warming your feet by the fire on Christmas Eve at Pete and Eileen’s.

He could call any number of the four thousand carefully cultivated members of his friend group to combat the soul crushing loneliness. It’s just as well Harry isn’t here anyway. He has this habit of disappearing himself whenever Nick has people over, and the rest of them are starting to doubt Harry even exists.

He could call any of them up. But all he really wants is Harry.

Something shiny catches his eye, reflecting off the television. It’s one of the Nick-knacks-- fool’s gold, Harry’d said it was, or pyrite if Nick wanted to impress someone. It doesn’t really look like fool’s gold, though, not like any of the bits Nick had had as a kid in his fake gemstone collection.

He can just about feel Harry pressed up beside him. Nick can hear the warm, silky tones of Harry’s voice spouting some of that useless trivia he’s got bottled up in his head that leaks out of him like he can’t help it. The endless supply of odd knowledge Harry has that keeps Nick googling things like meteors on the internet just to keep up.

All of it’s just proof he can make anything in the world about Harry Styles, if he really wanted to, even something as simple and ridiculous as travel souvenirs from his great uncle Ivan.

\--

Harry’s back. It only takes him nine days this time. No one’s counting.

There’s a light pouring out from his flat onto the balcony, bathing Harry in some sort of ethereal light. He looks otherworldly, impossible in a way that makes Nick feel like he’s got to put his hands on him _immediately_.

He’s shirtless, in a pair of loose joggers, and leaning casually up against the railing. Once Nick’s slid his glass door open enough to get his nose and half his mouth out into the world, he realizes Harry’s on the phone.

“Butterfly will come see me,” he says, pausing for a moment. “Not, I just -- I just got back. Kiev can wait. Summertime is the priority. I don’t care if it’s not your priority, it’s _mine_ .” He sighs heavily. “Fine. _Fine._ ” He rings off and slides his phone in a pocket.

Harry slouches further, contemplating their view of London like he’s contemplating a masterpiece, like he’s digging his feet in for the long haul until he’s discovered everything about the view that he can, until he’s unlocked all its secrets.

Nick thinks it would be quite nice if Harry looked at him that way too.

“Harold Stars,” Nick calls.

“Yes, darling?” Harry drawls. He turns for Nick slowly, eyes just as serious as they had been, and Nick has to remind himself all over again that Harry Styles doesn’t think he’s a masterpiece.

“I’m bored.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Thank you.” Nick slides his door shut, head down toward the floor where he’s gently nudging Stinky away with his foot, and locks it blindly.

Harry knocks at the glass sliding door about two blinks later and --

“I thought you would use the front door. You know. Like a normal person.” Nick steps aside to let Harry in. The dogs go absolutely raving, but quiet down the moment Harry kneels to greet them, pressing as many kisses on their heads as they’re trying to give him.

That’s not entirely fair, is it.

“Balcony was faster.”

“Quite a jump between us. You lunatic.” Nick nearly cuffs him ‘round the head for retroactively making Nick nearly pass out with fear at the thought of Harry jumping the distance.

“It’s really not that far.” Harry rises.

“Jesus, what’s happened to your face?” He gets his hands on it immediately, pushing Harry’s head until he’s stumbled back into the range of the soft light over his oven. Harry’s got a shiner the size of France blooming on his left cheek.

“Hm? Oh. You should see the other guy,” Harry jokes, before he corrects himself. “Slight run in with a banister, I’m afraid. Awfully clumsy.”

“A banister made of brick?”

“Might have been. It was rather… solid?”

“D’you need some peas? I might have a bag of peas. Or like a giant rare steak, like you see in the cartoons.” Nick pulls open his freezer. “Who am I kidding, of course I don’t have a rare steak, I’m off red meats this week, but peas I could do. Or maybe some frozen strawberries for those smoothies you said I should have. You like strawberries, right?”

“Am I going to eat them?”

Nick pauses. “I suppose not.”

Harry just has this way of getting him all flustered. So Nick shoves a bag of peas onto his face in retribution.

“You just -- you weren’t planning on getting dressed?”

Harry frowns from under the peas. “Should I have? I could go get a shirt.”

“No, I, uh, it’s. Um. Here.” He hands Harry the first shirt he finds lying around, a white thing with black spots that Harry slides into around the peas and doesn’t do up the buttons for.

Nick almost regrets it as he’d said it, giving Harry a reason to cover up those arms, that torso, those hips. But it’s better this way. Or at the very least, it’s just easier.

“Did you know that the day before you moved in, I almost got hit by a car?” It’s the closest thing Nick’s got in solidarity to having a run-in with a banister. And the story’s usually a crowd pleaser, but Harry cuts that short.

“I did, yeah.”

“You did?”

Harry hums. “You mention it a lot. When you think I’ve done you a great injustice. Almost like you think it was my fault.”

“You should stop enacting great injustices against me,” Nick says primly. “If you’re so tired of hearing about it.”

“I’m not tired of hearing about it.” He sounds too sincere for Nick to function properly as a human without taking a moment to regroup.

Nick sighs a breath of relief. It’s really all he’s got to say at this point. “It was a red 1987 Toyota Camry.”

“With a black trim and one hubcap missing.”

“It was so odd, like, it was coming right at me, and at the last moment, it blew two tires and went sliding off in a different direction. Quite lucky to be alive, I am.”

Harry’s lips twist before he says, “Yes. Fortuitous.”

\--

Harry’s in his bed. Wearing his shirt. Lounging like it’s the morning after and he needs another twenty and maybe a cigarette before he’s ready to go again. The effect should be ruined by the bag of peas Harry holds to the side of his face, but it’s really not.

Nick blinks and sits next to him. He has no idea what possessed him to get Harry on his bed, but somehow they’ve made it here. There’s no going back.

“What was your trip away for?”

Harry thinks about it for a moment. “Just. A recce.”

“A recce.”

“Mm,” Harry says, which is not a stunningly long and comprehensive play-by-play of his holiday like most people would give after such an absence. But Harry’s not much like most people.

“Recce, short for reconnaissance.”

“Is it?”

“Well, I read it on the internet, so…”

“Must be true,” Harry agrees. He sets the bag of peas down on the bed and stretches out like it’s his own bed, the sides of Nick’s shirt slipping off his chest. He rests his hands in a near pile on top of the butterfly tattoo on his stomach.

“I missed you while you were away,” Nick admits. “Is that ridiculous?”

Harry’s quiet for a moment, quiet enough Nick thinks the answer is yes. But then Harry says, still so quiet, “I missed you too.”

“Really?”

“Well. Yeah.”

“I didn’t know.” It’s sort of hard to pin Harry down. He’s around all the bloody time, but he’s never actually said he _likes_ Nick. And Nick comes from a group of carefully cultivated friends who use _I love you_ like it’s punctuation.

“You’re -- Nick, you’re the best part of my day.”

Nick snorts. “That sounds like a rather tragic day.”

Harry sits up abruptly, crowding into Nick’s space with this look on his face like this is the most serious topic he’s ever encountered in his life. “You’re so -- good. You’re a good person. You’re honest. If you told me something, I’d believe it. It’s. Refreshing. There’s so much -- I couldn’t even say, like you wouldn’t _understand,_ but. Please believe me. Best part of my day.”

Nick feels sick to his stomach. “I’m not that honest.”

“You’re not?” Harry’s face falls.

He’s a shit person, honestly, because he thinks the world of Harry and then some. He closes his eyes and says, come hell or high water, “Every single day I don’t kiss you is a day I’ve been dishonest with you. Because I think about it every day.”

He feels Harry’s hand on his face, and he’s careful to keep his eyes shut. If he hopes them, he’ll confirm that this isn’t real. That Harry isn’t touching him like he’s breakable, that he can’t feel Harry’s breath against his lips.

“Look at me,” Harry says.

“I won’t, thank you.”

“I won’t kiss you if you won’t look at me.”

Nick’s eyes fly open and he’s kissed immediately, earnestly, almost desperately. Harry kisses like they’re breathing life into each other, like maybe they’ll live forever with the taste of their lips together. Then Harry jerks away, his head in his hands.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Harry says, muffled.

Nick’s heart sinks the four floors down out of their building and keeps going down the street, like it’ll never be seen again. “Because Olivia?”

Harry looks at him sharply. “How do you know that name?”

“Is Olivia your girlfriend? Please say no.”

Harry works on his answer for quite some time, and Nick’s heart queues to get on a train, to get on a plane, to fly halfway around the world just to avoid this embarrassment. “No,” Harry answers slowly. “Olivia isn’t… my girlfriend.”

“Wife?”

“No.”

“Lover of indeterminate relationship status.”

“Nick.”

“I’m just checking.”

Harry softens, like he’s deflating, like all that weight of the world has found its way back to his shoulders. “You have no idea. How much I want -- ”

“You could have it.”

“I can’t.” Harry looks sad to say it. Devastated, even. “My job. I’m -- I’m gone so often and it’s like. One day I might not come back, you know? Hardly seems fair.”

Nick swallows hard. “Are you leaving me, Harry Styles?”

“Not if I can help it,” Harry says, like it’s the biggest truth to ever pass through his lips.

\--

Harry leaves him. Off on another one of his damn trips.

It’s awful.

Harry comes by earlier in the morning with a small box, presents it to Nick with all the seriousness of bestowing a knighthood. “I brought you something. From my last trip. Forgot to bring it over last night.”

“Oh, Harry.”

“It’s a, um, a Nick-knack.” Harry looks proud of himself.

“Come inside, we’ll have a cuppa and I’ll open it.”

Harry chews on his lip, which is never a good sign. “I -- I have to go. Now. But I’ll be back.”

Then Harry leaves.

Nick hates him. Loves him. Waits for him for days. Watches for the telltale flick of light or the shuffling of feet or the steady stream of a shower. Sits on the sofa because it’s got the best vantage point to next door.

“I know better than this, Pig Dog,” he tells his dog, because Aimee won’t hear another word about it. Pig huffs, digging her nose further into Nick’s side until he bowls over. At least someone’s showing they care.

He knows he’s being unreasonable, is the worst part. Before, he was a fun sort of mopey, one that you could laugh at in a sort of self-deprecating way. But then they crossed a line. Harry went and kissed him and now Nick’s stuck in another significant point in time in his life -- it’s the day after Harry Styles kissed him.

He flicks his eyes up to his shelf of Nick-knacks. The glass butterfly is there, front and center, beautifully crafted, streaks of clear and purple glass twisted together in some impossible design. It almost puts the rest of Nick’s flat, the literal _entirety_ of the flat to shame just by being here. But Nick supposes that’s also what Harry does, so it’s fair play.

It looks about like it’s going to take off in flight and leave him too. Out the window, back home to whatever far away land it’d come from. Which is also what Harry does.

Harry never did say where he’d gotten it.

\--

Nick wakes with a startle at the sound of a car backfiring, or something equally loud and undeniably rude at 2 am.

There’s a loud grunt and some banging and Nick walks into his kitchen, absolutely horrified that this is how he finally hears Harry having sex, after all this time. It’s bad enough that Harry’s back this late, that he’s not come to see first, but he’s done Nick the absolute disservice of pulling while Nick was in the building.

Christ, it sounds like more like a James Bond film than anything vaguely romantic, and Nick’s not exactly one to kink shame, but _honestly_ no one over there sounds like they’re having a good time. And there’s no way Nick’s getting a wink of sleep tonight.

Nick storms right over and pounds on Harry’s door. It’s not jealousy, honest, it’s just, this isn’t very neighborly behavior. Especially with that bullshit from the other day about Harry not being allowed to shag Nick because of his job -- clearly whoever Harry’s got over here hasn’t quite read the memo.

It’s a hot minute before the door swings open, Harry Styles on the other side of it looking thoroughly trashed, like he’s been through the wringer some four times, and, quite frankly, it’s disgusting that anyone’s made him look like this but Nick.

“Nicholas Grimshaw,” he says, before he tips right over, and Nick’s the only thing from keeping him from lying face down on the floor. Nick should just drop him, serves him right for all the noise he’s just been making. Only. Harry’s still fully clothed.

“What is this -- have you spilled wine down your front? You’re a sloppy drunk, Harry Styles.” Nick tugs at his shirt to inspect the damage, but it’s -- it’s not wine. It comes off on Nick’s fingers too thick to be wine, it’s -- Nick pulls up Harry’s shirt to find a nasty scar on his hip and, above that, what looks like a fucking bullet hole, if he had to guess.

Harry groans when Nick sticks his fingers in it a bit -- accidentally, of course -- and Nick stops up. He’s got his bleeding neighbor in his arms, not in the expletive sort of way, in the _Harry is actually bleeding_ sort of way.

Nick casts a look around -- partly out of curiosity because he’s never been invited in here, partly because he hasn’t got a clue what he should do. Harry’s flat is sparse. Furnishings that look like they haven’t been used. A single chair at the table in the kitchen. A single chair, not even a sofa, in the living room, a single mattress in the corner, a single dead body lying in a single pool of blood.

“Is that a -- is that a fucking _body_.”

“Mmm, little bit.”

Nick looks between the two of them, his head whipping so fast he’s going to get a crick, but it’s like he’s on hydraulics at this point, incapable of stopping. “Harry -- and I mean this from the very depths of my soul -- what the _fuck_?”

“Was coming to get you -- told’m he had to go through me. Won’t let ‘em get you, fight all the bad guys.”

The bad guys? Harry killed a guy. Harry killed a guy that was coming for Nick. This is the second time someone’s nearly killed Nick in the Era of Harry Styles, but Nick doubts he’ll get a funny cocktail party story out of this one. “You -- this guy -- sorry, did you save my life?”

Harry grins. His teeth are coated in blood. “Little bit.”

Nick sinks them slowly down to the floor, his upper body strength giving out, Harry’s lower body strength giving out. Harry’s eyes slowly start to slip shut. “Harry, love, Harry, eyes on me.”

Harry peeks one eye open with great effort, then the next. “Eyes on you. I like my eyes on you.”

“Ooh, you’re a flirt, shame on you,” he says with a nervous laugh.

There’s a radio on the floor a few feet away from them, squawking and squawking, utterly ruining the moment, “This is Olivia -- is Butterfly secure? Over.”

Nick snatches up the radio. “Hello, Olivia, sorry I didn’t know you were a bloke. That’s actually quite confusing, but shame on me, gender roles, blah blah. Harry’s a bit busy right now bleeding out all over the hardwood so unless you’re going to call an ambulance, fuck the _fuck_ off.” He pauses. “Over and out.”

“Olivia,” Harry mumbles, reaching for the radio, or, Nick suspects, trying to, because his arm twitches and flops a bit like a dying fish in the general direction of the radio.

“Who’s Olivia?”

“What is Olivia really? Is Olivia a person? Is Olivia an emotion? Is she a place? We don't know,” he slurs, so Olivia sounds more like Olivi-yer, and his head lolls onto Nick’s chest.

“Harry, have you got a phone? I didn’t bring my phone. We need to call 999.”

“Nooooo.”

Nick hasn’t got a fucking _clue_ what to do, he’s absolutely losing his mind, but he doesn’t want Harry to worry. Not that Harry’d worry if he were some sort of _assassin_ , or if he’s the type to just fucking _stop assassins_. “Harry, shh, you need -- I need -- ”

“Olivia,” Harry mumbles, before he looks down for the count, consciousness gone and all. Nick considers just leaving him on the floor to run back to his flat, but then the door bursts open behind him.

Turns out Olivia did phone the ambulance, because paramedics burst in a moment later, dressed in all black, accompanied by some sort of police regiment. Nick’s hesitant to let him go, they have to pry Harry from his vice grip. He’s never known an ambulance to get anywhere this fast.

Nick’s dragged back to his, the beefy policeman who hauls him out says something about Harry’s being a crime scene, and they’ll need to take his statement. There’s not a single reassurance that he’s okay, nothing calming like you’d sort of expect after a trauma. The more Nick looks at the policeman, the more he looks familiar.

There’s blood on Nick’s hands and it doesn’t feel like a joke anymore. He doesn’t even know how to let all the pieces fall into place in his mind so this whole thing will make sense.

The policeman stops to study the shelves of Nick-knacks seriously before he leaves.

\--

The day after Harry Styles gets shot in the side, Niall Horan moves in. Or at least he’s house-sitting, is what he says, from where he’s draped in Harry’s doorway when Nick goes to walk Pig and Stinky.

“Bull-fucking-shit, no offense, Harry doesn’t have enough of a house to sit. He’s got two chairs and a mattress.”

He’s spent all night and all morning sitting on his sofa, worrying at all of his fingernails until they threaten to bleed, stress smoking on his balcony like maybe if he waits long enough, Harry’ll come out to his.

Harry’s not coming back. Harry’s not his neighbor. Harry works for MI-5 or MI-6 or MI-42 or whatever secret agency specifically exists to ruin Nick’s whole life. He’s not in the mood for a charade anymore. In fact, he feels a bit like a used napkin. All he wants is for someone to tell him the truth. Someone to apologize for the fact that he’s yet to sleep and doubts he ever will again. He’s a wanted man, he is.

Niall doesn’t say anything to that, just keeps grinning this sort of empty grin at Nick, nothing close to the warmth of Harry’s grin. He must be worse at this than Harry.

“Isn’t Harry’s flat a crime scene?” Nick prompts. “Y’know. With the _dead body_.”

Niall’s grin takes a hit. “There’s no dead body,” he says with a laugh, which is a blatant lie. Nick wonders if it’s for the benefit of any eavesdropping neighbors. They’d caused quite a ruckus, he and Harry and Olivia.

“I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. Harry -- he told me. The truth.” Also a blatant lie, but if he’s going to get all the information he’s desperate for, he’s got to play their game as well as they do.

Niall’s grin slips away altogether. “He... _told_ you?”

“Yep. He told me everything. All about -- y’know. Olivia. And Butterfly.”

“Shit,” Niall hisses, tugging Nick by the shirt and pushing him inside his own flat. The dogs go yapping after them, stumbling over their leads, and Niall slams the door shut before turning away to tap at his phone.

Nick lets the dogs go and the barrel over to the same dog bed in the corner, stuffing themselves into one even though they’ve each got their own. Nick thinks maybe of joining them.

“Operation Summertime is compromised,” Niall snaps into his phone.

“You’re not exactly subtle,” Nick calls over to him. Like it wasn’t compromised last night? When Nick was sitting on the floor with a bleeding secret agent in his hands and a dead mook in the corner? MI-5984 must not think very highly of Nick’s basic deduction skills.

Niall doesn’t say anything, listens for a long time, and says, “Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am, yes, thank you,” before he rings off.

“Is Harry in trouble?” Nick asks. Not that he... cares. Probably. He definitely cares. But if he were asked if he cared, he’d have to say no. Just so he doesn’t embarrass himself.

“He’s too familiar with you. You weren’t even supposed to know he was here. He was just supposed to put up some cameras and call it a day.”

Harry _is_ too familiar. He can’t imagine Niall knows exactly how familiar. That the press of Harry’s lips against his are too familiar, his taste is too familiar, the press of his chest against Nick’s is too familiar.

 _You have no idea. How much I want_ , he can hear Harry’s voice say. He shakes his head, wiping that memory. “So what are you doing here, covering for him? Where’s your cameras?”

“We have reason to believe there are more coming.”

“ _More_?”

“Yeah. They’re coming for these,” Niall says with a squint, like maybe Nick should have known that if Harry had told him everything. Nick realizes he means the Nick-knacks.

“Then fucking take them, I don’t want them, I don’t even know why you let them stay here in the first place.”

“We were trying to draw them out. We weren’t exactly sure who they were. But we knew they wanted you after they tried to hit you with that car. Erase the witness and all.”

The realization washes over Nick like he’s had a giant vat of water poured all over his head. It hits him hard and fast and completely, but even after he understands what’s happened to him, he still feels the odd streak of truth running down his back. Everything is related. The day Nick nearly got hit by a car and the day Harry Styles moved in.

“By using me as bait? That’s -- you’re -- honestly, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever been told to my face, and someone once told me to take my two-pound spray tan and get the fuck out.”

Niall rolls his eyes and mutters, “Christ.”

“It was a natural tan, Niall, I’d just been to Ibiza.”

Nick flumps down onto his sofa, head in his hands, wondering if he should just stop trying to parse through the information. He's hurt. He doesn't want the day after Harry Styles got shot in the side to become the day Harry Styles broke Nick Grimshaw’s heart.

“Harry wanted to use me as bait?”

“Harry never -- Harry was very much against it. It was why he got himself assigned to be your neighbor in the first place. So he could watch over you.”

Nick laughs, a sad thing. “Well, that’s utterly endearing and yet somehow also extraordinarily creepy, in like a _Every Breath You Take_ sort of way.”

“Look, I can’t -- honestly, I can’t talk to you. Or tell you about -- any of this.” Niall runs a stressed hand through his hair. “How did you get me to talk to you about this?”

“I have an open and friendly face and an inviting tone that makes people want to talk,” Nick says glumly.

“I’m looking out for you, you don’t have to worry, okay? This’ll all be over soon.”

Niall leaves.

Nick thinks maybe he doesn’t want it to be over soon. Not if it means Harry’s gone for good.

\--

When Niall opens his door, Nick’s eyes flick in behind him to where all the blood had been. Not that Nick had thought Niall would just sit around in a flat covered in blood, it's just -- all the evidence is gone. No trace of the day Harry Styles got shot in the side. No trace ever was there at all.

Niall looks prepared to go to action.

“Take me to see him.”

Niall looks less prepared to go to action. “I’m not -- ”

“Take me to see him, or I swear I’ll make your life a living hell.” Nick’s reasonably certain he can find a way to do that. Even if Niall is some sort of secret agent, probably trained to withstand torture. But everyone always underestimates exactly how much you can do torturing-through-neighboring.

“Fine.”

Niall has a car. A nice car. A car that actually doesn't look real, slick and futuristic and not the least bit low-key. Nick’s hesitant to touch even the seatbelt, afraid it's going to light something on fire in some sort of secret spy move.

Turns out it's just a seatbelt.

“He's asked after you,” is the only thing Niall says along the way. Otherwise the drive is absolutely silent, Niall driving with careful precision out of the city proper, Nick pulling at the artful hole in the knee of his jeans until it unravels so much it no longer looks artful.

Harry’s holed up in a large manor house in the middle of bloody nowhere, some real Jane Austen shit, and Nick can't fathom Harry living in a place like this when he'd spent however many months in the one bedroom next to Nick. This thing must be sixteen bedroom at the very least.

“Does Harry live here?”

“No,” Niall says. And doesn't elaborate. He parks the cat. And doesn't move. “Tell him he owes me big time.”

Nick nods his thanks and walks the path up to the door, wringing his hands all along. He should have thought of something proper clever to say. Something that’ll prove he's in charge here, and Harry’s got some explaining to do.

When he opens the door, Harry just looks at him, pale as a ghost. Whether it's because he's scared of Nick or he's just been shot in the side, it's a real tossup. Nick nearly asks if Harry should be up and about, but instead he blurts, “Is Harry Styles your real name?”

Harry blinks slowly. “Yes.”

Nick pushes in and Harry follows slowly because he's bit of an ambler already, with the added benefit of having been shot. “That seems like a dangerous decision.”

“I wanted you to know who I was.”

Harry takes pity on how Nick’s just wandering around the house trying and failing to find the perfect setting for their showdown -- or maybe he's just tired of walking -- and leads them into a sitting room.

“I’m afraid you sort of fell down on the mark there, sweetheart.”

“My job -- Nick, this is important,” Harry implores. “Your great uncle Ivan is into some serious shit. I mean it. He really isn’t a great uncle, he’s quite an awful one. He owes money to at least three different crime syndicates in western Europe alone.”

“What in the bloody hell has it got to do with me?”

“He was sending you things he didn’t want to get caught with. I’m sure so he could collect them again one day. Once it was safe. And sell ‘em.”

Nick frowns. “Well, that’s rude. You can’t just take a bloke’s presents back and then sell them.”

“The emerald he sent you lodged in the Sweden snow globe is worth two million pounds.”

“Fuck off,” Nick shouts like a knee-jerk reaction.

“M’serious.”

Nick is silent for a full three minutes. Three minutes of digesting that exactly one of those Nick-knacks is worth two million pounds. He's got thirteen of them. He's like -- honestly, they built the whole bloody Tower of London just to protect the Crown Jewels and the most Nick’s got are two hyperactive dogs and a cricket bat.

It just. Seems irresponsible.

“Why haven’t you arrested him? Taken all my shit and be done with it.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Can’t just take a bloke’s presents and store them as evidence. S’rude.”

He smacks Harry over the head. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m injured,” Harry pouts, giving his head a rub that leaves his hair sticking up every which way. Nick fights the sincere impulse to run his fingers through it. Only to straighten it back out. Not out of some misguided sense of nostalgia. That’d be absurd.

“I could have _died_ while you were playing your little cat and mouse game. _That’s_ rude.”

Harry’s face is still crumpled when he says, “I saved your life, this is the thanks I get.”

He looks utterly ridiculous, sitting on this settee from the early 19th century, his arms folded carefully over his chest. Pouting. Like a child. When in reality it’s Nick that’s been slighted, really,

Nick tsks. “I don’t remember you pouting this much when you were my neighbor.”

“I was trying to be professional.”

“Professional is a thing you _could_ call what you were doing. But it’d be inaccurate.”

“Most people find me charming.”

Nick sours immediately, and, by his calculation, about a minute and a half from finding an antique vase and smashing it right on the floor. “Do you often seduce your neighbors while on assignment?”

Harry’s eyes widen and his mouth gapes open and closed like that singing bass you’d hang on the wall. Or, Nick supposes, like a regular bass, just swimming around doing bass things.

Harry reaches out to tangle his hands with Nick’s and Nick lets him. “It wasn’t -- I really did mean it,” Harry says quietly. “All of it. You have to know now why I couldn’t. Please believe me.”

Nick watches their hands together, the way Harry’s thumb absently smoothes over his own. Harry doesn’t have a reason to lie, he supposes. Not here in this room, not after all this time. He could have shut the door right in Nick’s face if he didn’t want to hear about it. He wouldn’t have asked after him.

“I do. God help me, but I do.”

Harry exhales into a smile of relief, leaning in like he’s going to kiss Nick. Nick prepares himself, mentally, physically, in any way he can, even though there’s really no true way you can prepare yourself for Harry Styles.

But Harry doesn’t kiss him. Harry says, “There really is a good reason we didn’t tell you. Your uncle’s small potatoes, but if he can lead us to the bigger potatoes -- ”

“Harry, be quiet.”

Harry turns away, censured. “Okay.”

Nick clears his throat to give himself something to do other than plaster his whole body of Harry’s and take him right here and now on this antique settee. He’s still mad. He’s got a right. He’s been lied to. He’s almost been shot. He’s almost been hit by a car. He’s -- he’s absolutely stupid about Harry Styles. And how Harry Styles saved his whole life.

“I’m -- Butterfly?” Nick says lightly. “My secret spy code name is Butterfly.”

Harry shrugs. “I like butterflies.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Harry looks over at him, his eyes shining with sincerity. Nick hates that he does that. He also, unfortunately, really loves that he does that.

“I like you,” Harry says.

“I’ve noticed.” It sounds a lot softer than Nick intends, a betrayal of hideous proportions by his own beating heart.

Harry grins that grin of his, the one that makes Nick feel like life would just be easier if he melted into a puddle onto the floor and slipped into a drain, out to the ocean. Maybe it would be easier, but it wouldn’t be better.

“Suppose I like you too,” Nick says, and kisses the grin right off his face.

\----

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! If you need me, I'm [here](http://wickershire.tumblr.com).


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